Mirror images
can't act
as mirrors
Your leaders know their own terrain.
Few see the whole picture.
Here's what we brought into view.
CLIENT LANDSCAPE ONE
Financial Services Organization
Two leadership landscapes:
The steering committee meeting room seats a hundred, but today the two-seater tables are arranged in a long U shape for 15. Each table is separated by half the length of a table.
The furniture spoke before anyone else did about the silos.
They'd held their position in the industry for 18 years until now. Changes in regulations and new competitors were the easiest part to explain.
But if those explanations are the full picture, why did their closest competitor just take their spot?
Behind closed doors, 54 leaders share snapshots. They're spending more time on documentation than making decisions and implementing. People want written instructions before they'll act.
Two C-suite leaders have already left for competitors, and a third says his level of authority is equivalent to a director elsewhere.
Six out of nine in the C-suite share patterns cascading through their departments.
The CEO's patterns flow through the entire company.
Their strengths had served them well in a stable market. But when it changed, risk appetite slid into aversion. Quality focus throttled speed. Integrity hardened into process over relationship.
Their closest competitor had adapted faster. Though they've held their position since, closing the gap continues.
They came in knowing they'd lost ground.
They left knowing why.
CLIENT LANDSCAPE TWO
Health System Organization
My workspace for the engagement is the top right corner of the leader's walnut conference table. He wants me embedded in his office during each visit.
The conference table is always clear. On his desk, stacks of documents inches thick stand to his left and right and in metal trays five levels high. Last year's papers layer the bulletin board.
The deluge doesn't stop at his door.
Departments prepay for their own power, staff purchase their own laptops, and three different partners invite the same people to their workshops on the same day.
The leader shares his frustrations about his staff.
His feedback is the unvarnished truth to help them improve. How it lands is a different story.
His staff share their frustrations about him.
Both share their frustrations about consultants that leave their leadership bench strength exactly where they found it.
One direct report wonders aloud why he isn't using a time management tool that used to organize his day. He hasn't noticed its absence until we talk one year into his new role. Then he recreates it himself.
We add one non-negotiable to the next phase: building bench strength is the only deliverable.
He finds a way to honor the truth while being kinder to himself and his team.
The leadership team improves their skills by 24% and begins to mentor local leaders.
MY SNAPSHOT
My boss tells me to go home as she passes my office on her way out. Maybe it's the tenth or eleventh time she does this that I finally see it. I'd been in a culture where achieving targets earned you more work but rarely more resources.
I don't know when it became a part of me, too.
I only know when it stopped seeming normal, I wasn't in that environment anymore.
I've been exploring my own landscape ever since.
LEADERSHIP LANDSCAPE
The Paradigm Partnership shows you your picture.
The Leadership Landscape extends the view.
Shortly after your individual work begins, we look at your leadership team in parallel. We hold private conversations with each leader about their view of themselves and each other. You'll give your view of them, too.
These snapshots form the composite picture.
Challenges that seemed isolated will show their connections. There's the culture you created on purpose. And the one that formed in the spaces between. The composite picture shows both.
You'll see your patterns reflected back from your team. Some of what you'll see started with you. Some of it didn't.
We determine the scope together. The work typically runs six months to a year or more, individually and collectively.
You'll be clear on the why.
What and when naturally follow.